Last week, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) sent a report to its high-net worth private banking clients to help educate them on the risks and opportunities of investing in cryptocurrencies. The financial giant's report was written in February 2021 and obtained by CoinDesk on Friday.
The JPMorgan report details how Bitcoin (BTC) could be valued, using 3 different metrics: the number of users, the value of gold, and the global money supply. Applying a version of Metcalfe's law would value Bitcoin at $21,667 apiece. Applying the current value of gold to the max supply of Bitcoin would value it at $540,814.
Finally, applying the global value of money to Bitcoin's max supply would value it at $1.9 million each. JPMorgan's report downplays Bitcoin's comparison to gold, citing "volatility characteristics and correlation profile refute the comparison to the traditional safe haven asset." The report suggests the bank remains neutral on Bitcoin but is nudging some clients to look into the asset class.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Jack Dorsey's attempt to auction his first ever tweet on the blockchain has ignited a bidding war. The CEO of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and Square (NYSE: SQ) on Friday highlighted a tokenized version of his 2006 tweet on the non-fungible token (NFT) platform Valuables. As of Saturday, the highest bid was $2 million, made by Justin Sun, the founder of TRON and the CEO of BitTorrent. Sun has been bidding against Sina Estavi, CEO of Malaysia-based Bridge Oracle. Valuables is an Ethereum-based (ETH) platform created by the social network Cent that allows Twitter users to authenticate and tokenize their tweets for sale to others. Dorsey is a well-known evangelist of Bitcoin, and his auction effort shows he is also interested in Ethereum and NFTs.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said the US should pursue innovation on a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Chairman of the Senate Banking committee called on the Federal Reserve to "lead the way" on a CBDC. In a letter shared Friday to Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Boston Fed President Lael Brainard, Brown wrote: "Some of our international counterparts are moving quickly to determine whether to implement a central bank digital currency. The US must do the same. We cannot be left behind." He suggested the Fed should make progress on both token-based digital dollars and digital dollar accounts. After he introduced a bill in 2020 to create a digitized version of the existing US dollar (USD) and give US citizens access to so-called FedAccounts, Brown noted he believes a token-based dollar on a blockchain can complement the FedAccount dollar. He also called on the Fed and Treasury to set a concrete timetable for a CBDC.
Crypto prices rose to $1.54 trillion this week. For the majors, Cardarno (ADA) plunged, but the others ended in the green. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Cardano, down 12.5%, Monero (XMR), down 3%, and Polygon (MATIC), down 1%. The biggest gainers were Chiliz (CHZ), up a whopping 160%, Enjin Coin (ENJ), up 154%, and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), up 81%. Next week traders will watch if Bitcoin can hang above $50,000.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.